


Murder Unaware

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Community: sentinel_thurs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9311285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: A husband wakens to find his wife dead beside him - murdered. The case is handed to Jim & Blair.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Tbursday prompt 'locked door'

Murder Unaware

by  Bluewolf

Don Hoskins blinked sleepily as the alarm rang, waking him from a deep sleep. He yawned, and swung his legs out of bed, stretched and, surprised that his wife - who was far more of a morning person than he was - still hadn't moved, glanced around at her.

Anne was lying on her back, her mouth sagging open. Something about the way she was lying concerned him, and he leaned over to her.

"Anne? You awake?" _Silly question_ , he thought. _She'd have moved if she'd been awake..._ "Anne?"

He shook her; her head rolled to one side. "Anne?"

Nothing; no movement, nothing...

Horrified, he ran for the phone. 9-1-1...

When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics checked her; Don hovered just inside the door. After only a few seconds - perhaps a minute - the EMT looked up. "I'm sorry, sir - there's nothing we can do. If you'd like to get dressed, you can follow us to the hospital, but I'm afraid all they can do is declare Mrs. Hoskins DOA."

***

Because it was a sudden death - Anne Hoskins had been healthy the previous day, had not been seen by a doctor for years, her last 'ailment' an operation to remove her appendix when she was fifteen - the police were called in as soon as it was confirmed at the hospital that she was indeed DOA. It was pure routine; nobody expected it to be anything but an unfortunate natural death.

Indeed, based on the EMTs' call to the hospital, Dr. Warburton's secretary called the police before he had even had a chance to examine the body. Within a few minutes, however, as he began to check the corpse so that he could give an approximate time of death (other than DOA) Warburton realized that this was not a natural death.

Anne Hoskins' neck was bruised, and the bruises looked suspiciously like finger marks.

Someone had strangled her.

***

It came as no real surprise to Simon Banks when the case of a mysterious strangulation was handed to Major Crime. Don Hoskins was a local politician, which - in the Mayor's view - made his wife's death a more serious crime than the exact same killing of the wife of a small shopkeeper.

Simon would have liked to give the case to Wilson and Carstairs, two relatively new transfers into Major Crime who were showing considerable promise, or even - considering the Mayor's interest in the case - to the beta team of Brown and Rafe, but he knew that as far as the Mayor was concerned, only the alpha team of Ellison and Sandburg would do.

Simon had begun to think seriously of giving that alpha team nothing but 'transferred to us on the orders of the Mayor' cases. It would certainly ease their workload, but he knew that Jim would resign rather than be condemned to dealing with only the mostly fairly minor cases handed to them by the Mayor. All right, this one - the mysterious killing of a politician's wife, in bed with her husband asleep beside her - couldn't be termed 'minor', but it was an exception.

Resignedly, he yelled, "Ellison! Sandburg!"

In the bullpen, Jim and Blair glanced at each other, both aware of a note in Simon's voice that said, "You aren't going to like this." Then they rose and, side by side, crossed to Simon's office.

At the door Blair held back, allowing Jim, as the senior detective, to go in first. He barely heard Jim's whispered, "Coward!"

"Custard yellow," he murmured in agreement as he closed the door, then turned to join Jim in front of Simon's desk.

"This could be a bad one," Simon said.

"Go on, sir," Jim said.

"Councilman Don Hoskins - "

"The Mayor's top adviser? What's happened? Someone pushed in front of him in a shop and he wants the guilty party found and given a prison sentence?"

"No, it is serious." 'This time' hovered in the air, unspoken. "When he woke this morning... his wife was lying dead beside him. She'd been strangled."

"You mean... someone broke in, strangled her in her bed, and he didn't waken?"

"That's how I read it."

"And didn't touch him?" Jim asked. "I would have thought that he was more likely to be the target for an intruder."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you," Simon agreed. "Anyway, Mr. Hoskins is currently at Cascade General, being treated for shock. Not the best time to speak to him, but we have to be seen to be moving fast on this one."

Jim glanced at his partner. "Feel up to asking him a few questions, Chief?"

Blair, who had been listening silently, glared at him, but nodded - his people skills were so much better than Jim's, he inevitably got the job of questioning shaken and shocky witnesses. Not that Hoskins could be called a _witness_ , exactly; but he would have to be questioned, even if all he could say was 'I was asleep'.

And that was indeed all he could say.

As they left the hospital, Jim shook his head. "He was telling the truth," he said. "He went to sleep, he heard nothing, and when the alarm wakened him his wife was lying dead beside him."

"You wouldn't think it possible," Blair muttered.

"While you were introducing yourself to him, I got the chance to ask the nurse if there was any sign that he had been sedated, and she said no," Jim added. "Now we need to go to his house and check it. Look for signs of a break in. See if there's anything obvious missing - "

"Though it would have to be very obvious for us to recognize that something was missing," Blair said.

***

They had got the house key from Hoskins, explaining that they needed to check the place for clues as to how the killer got in. Once at the house - a less ostentatious one than either would have expected - they paused for a moment at the locked front door while Jim checked around the keyhole for any marks indicating a possible forced entry.

He shook his head. "Nothing here," he said. "Unless the intruder had a key, he didn't get into the house this way."

Blair unlocked the door without comment and they went in.

A quick check of the locked back door proved as useless as that of the front door. Nobody had broken in by way of it. None of the windows were broken either.

"Either the killer did a Star Trek and transported himself in, or he was already in the house when Hoskins and his wife went to bed," Blair muttered.

"And Hoskins said nothing about a visitor," Jim added.

"Which means that if only the two of them were in the house and nobody actually broke in, the killer has to be Hoskins himself," Blair finished.

"Chief, either he has inhuman control over his heartbeat or he was telling the truth," Jim said. "And I'll swear he was too shaken - "

"Something I read, years ago... " Blair looked thoughtful. "Meanwhile, let's get back to the hospital, and on the way call in Serena, see if she can pull any fingerprints off Mrs. Hoskins' neck."

Jim's jaw dropped. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"You brawn, me brain," Blair suggested. "The other thing I want to do is see if I can put Mr Hoskins into a light trance - the way I've done with you once or twice - and see if he's got a memory or two that he's not aware of. I'll need his permission, of course... "

"Chief, if he was asleep - "

"That's the point. Think sleep walking."

"Sleep... Chief, are you saying you think Hoskins killed his own wife in his sleep?"

"It's not impossible," Blair said.

***

He was right. Serena pulled a fingerprint off one of the bruises on the dead woman's neck, and it marched her husband's. Horrified, Hoskins agreed to being put into a light trance, and in it he recalled a nightmare, of which he had no waking memory - someone had been attacking him, and he had fought back. Feeling a body beside him, he had directed his defence onto that body... and in the throes of his nightmare, killed his wife without knowing he was doing so.

"Not something he can be charged with," Blair said as he and Jim made their way back to the PD to report to Simon. "He'll need a lot of psychiatric care, and even with that I doubt he'll ever recover fully."

"Is it possible he subconsciously wanted rid of his wife?" Jim asked, knowing that Blair had taken psychology as a minor.

"We'll never know," Blair said sadly. "If he did, it was so subconscious I doubt he was aware of it at any level. Maybe he was secretly afraid that she would leave him for someone who would spend more time with her and less on his work - I think he's aware of working too long hours to prove his worth as a politician - and his fear of that led him to direct the violence in his nightmare at her. Better she died than walked out on him. But it's not something we're ever likely to find out - I seriously doubt that even the most skilled shrinks could 'prove' that."

"I feel quite sorry for him," Jim admitted, "having to live with the fact that, although he was unaware of doing it, he killed his wife."

"Something I read," Blair repeated. "He's not the first person to kill someone in his sleep, and he won't be the last. But knowing that won't make it any easier for him to live with."

Jim pulled the truck into the PD garage and parked; and side by side they made their way to the elevator, heading for Major Crime and to give their report to Simon.


End file.
